Apparatus for forming fur filled yarn



0a. 19, 1948. M. H. SIEGEL Ei AL 2,451,881

APPARATUS FOR FORMING FUR FILLED YARN Original Filed Oct. 11, 1943 HTTO/F/VZV Patented Oct. 19, 1948 Morris H.

Siegel and Frances Sonin, New York, N. Y.

Original application October 11, 1949, Serial No.

505,716. Divided and this application August 30, 1946, Serial No. 693,900

Claims.

The invention relates to apparatus of forming filled or core yarn'to be woven into a fur filled fabric in making artificial fur from which may be fashioned coats and other articles usually made from natural fur. The present disclosure is a divisional application from our copending application on Method for forming fur filled yarn, Serial #505,716, filed October 11 1943, now Patent No. 2,411,559, November 26, 1946.

The primary object of the invention is to utilize and thus provide a new market for a presently cheap form of waste fur hairs which, due primarily to the extremely short length of most of the hairs, are of no practical use and can thus be purchased cheaply from the fur industry.- This waste comes from clipping, cutting, shavings, combings and dying in the treatment of fur skins and exists as an indefinite flufiy mass of entangled hairs of varying lengths but mostly of short lengths. This waste material is at present being thrown away by the furriers as a useless by-product of their work. The present disclosure. contemplates the forming of an end product from this waste material and which end produce is a woven fabric which will have most of the visual characteristics of the fur side of a natural skin.

In actual practice, it has been found possible to mix the hair from different kinds of animal skins in practicing the method herein featured and in this way to give a wide variety of novel and beautiful effects to the resulting fabrics not known with the natural skins.

Considering the present disclosure, the object is to provide an improved technique and a simple form of apparatus for practicing the technique for treating the bulk waste and for utilizing the same as a coating for a, thread or similar filament to form a fur filled yarn capable of being used conventionally in a fabric weaving machine. The disclosure particularly contemplates means for forming the yarn by a sequence of steps including a disintegrating and opening out of the mass of indefinitely intermeshed hairs in which this waste is available; the prelaying of the hairs at least somewhat in parallelism; a gentle lifting of the hairs on to a travelling thread, in distinction from blowing them on to the thread, and which thread is preferably rotating about its own axis and sometimes coated with an adhesive.

Various other objects and advantages of the invention will be in part obvious from a consideration of the accompanying drawings and in part will be more fully set forth in the following particular description of one form of apparatus for practicing the invention, and the invention also consists in certain new and novel'features of construction and combination of parts hereinafter set forth and claimed.

In the accompanying drawings:

Fig. 11s a plan view of a machine forming a preferred embodiment of the invention with parts shown largely in symbolic outline, with the contents of the hopper at the left side of Fig. 2 omitted, and which machine in'its operation discloses one way in which the method aspects of the invention disclosed in the parent application may be practiced; in this showing the driving mechanism for actuating the several movable parts have been omitted to avoid confusion of showing conventional drive mechanism;

Fig. 2 is a vertical sectional view taken in the medial longitudinal plane through Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is an enlarged plan view of the top of the treating compartment at the upper right hand portion of Fig. 2 showing the parallel relation of the core forming thread to the discharge slot;

Fig. 4 is an enlarged detail view in axialsection of the ironer shown in smaller form in advance of the slot in Figs. 1 and 2;

Fig. 5 is a view of a short length of the finished yarn as it comes off the machine, highly magnified in an attempt to show its details and shown partly in longitudinal section; and

Fig. 6 is a transverse sectional view of the yarn shown in Fig. 5 taken on the plane indicated by the line 6-6 of Fig. 5.

The machine In may be divided for purposes of description into a measuring device II, a combined disintegrating and hair applying device l2 and an organization l3 of thread treating elements.

The measuring device ll comprising an open top hopper [4 provided in an inside wall and midheight thereof with a discharge port [5. Positioned in order from left to right in the hopper is a feeder I6 and a measuring drum ll for receiving the waste from the feeder. Between the drum I1 and the port 15 is a stripper l8 for flipping a layer of waste off the drum, through port It! and thus into the first or receiving compartment IQ of the device l2.

The feeder 16 comprises a broad bladed upstanding pusher plate 20 slidably mounted for reciprocatory movement along the inclined outer side 2| of the hopper M. The pusher is hung from a lever 22 so as to swing therefrom and the lever is operatively connected to the drive mechanism of the machine (not shown) to operate with suflicient activity to maintain the fur waste against the measuring drum H as it is introcharged through the throat 31 and advance the same with an undersweeping action through the aperture 32 and hence into the compartment 3|.

Within the compartment 3| are journalled three picker rollers 4|, 42 and 43 intergeared with each other and with the main drive to rotate counterclockwise. The several picker rollers act on the I matted hair to disintegrate the same. They tear with a plurality of circumferentially spaced apart short ledges extending transversely of the band 24. Each ledge is provided at its outer edge with a flange 25. All of the flanges extend in the direction of rotation of the drum, that is in a clockwise direction. A doctor 26, provided with outwardly projecting wire spring fingers 26' is mounted for rotation above the drum to feed the material thereto.

The flanged ledges 25 on the drum-act as the drum rotates from left to right about its top to coact with the doctor to withdraw from the mass of hair in the hopper a measured amount of the mass per rotation of the drum and doctor and draws it out into a long, thin ribbon-like form having the width of the drum. The ledges are very small extending beyond the drum about 3% of an inch so that the resulting ribbon of matted hair has about that thickness as it leaves the drum. As the drum rotates it advances this ribbon over the top of the drum, past the stripper Hi and as a freely floating streamer on through the port l5 and into the compartment IS.

The stripper l8 includes a shaft 21 geared externally of the hopper to the drum shaft 23 and extending from the shaft 21 is a plurality, shown to be four, of blades 28 of .somewhat stiff and yet slightly flexible leather. The stripper rotates counter-clockwise andthe outer edges of its blades engage the ribbon of matted hair and bodily raises it off the drum so that very little, if any, of the hair which has so passed as a ribbon over the top of the drum is ever carried about the under side of the drum. After the ledges 25 pass the point I5 they begin to pick up the waste which accumulates in the bottom of the hopper and the pusher plate tends to pack the waste somewhat so that there is a fairly uniform density to the ribbon. The thin ribbon of hair floats away from the stripper and moves gently into the compartment l9 as indicated by the arrows. It is understood that at this :point the hair while it is in ribbon form is still in an indefinitely matted condition and still has about the density of the original stock as it is fed into the hopper.

The device |2 comprises an upstanding metal casing 29 provided with a dividing wall 30 forming two compartments, the first or receiving compartment I9 and a second or discharging compartment 3 Communication is provided between the compartment by an aperture 32 about midheight of the wall 30. Offset from the aperture 32, roller 33 coacts with a guide piece 34 to divide the compartment l9 into a lower receiving portion 35 and an upper discharging portion 36 and to form a constrictive throat 31 between the roller 33 and guide piece 34.

Journalled within the portion 35 and located one above the other are two picker rollers 38 and 39 intergeared exteriorly'of the casing to rotate in the same direction, that is, counter-clockwise as indicated by the arrows. In the lower part of 'the upper portion 36 is journalled a single picker roller 40 intergeared to rotate counter-clockwise and thus in a direction to receive the material disthe hair particles apart, open up the mass, or differently expressed, reduce the specific density of the original stock until it assumes a light, fluify cloud-like effect as it accumulates in the upper portion of the compartment 3|.

In one practical operation and where a fine grade of-fur hair was used, the hair particles were separated so that the mass might be said to be translucent when light was directed through a thickness thereof of about one foot. The fur material follows the path indicated by the arrows moving upwardly through the constricted throat 31 into the lower part of portion 36, then laterally through aperture 32 and then upwardly in the compartment 3|.

The top wall 44' of the casing 29 is'provided with a long, narrow slot 45 providing a discharge opening from the top of the compartment 3|. It

is particularly noted that there'is no fan or other' air pressure or blower means acting on the mass of hair as it moves through'the casing 23 towards the discharge slot. The pickers and particularly the terminal pickers 4 l-43 are revolving at high speed and they may generate a gentle, barely perceptible updraft which assists in moving the disintegrated and flocculent mass of hair in a foam-like stream through the slot.. The final discharge through the slot appears to be more of a pushing action of the advancing mass than a blowing action. The resulting fluff simply moves upwardly and thus against the action of gravity as would a foam from beer or other gas charged liquid. All that is visible is that a cloud of loose hair rises up out of the slot in a fairly uniform rate per unit of 'length along the entire length of the slot.

In those cases where the waste hair used is of the straight, non-curling type a peculiar phenomena takes place in the upper portion of the compartment 3| just below the slot. The final picker 43 exterts an orientating action on the mass to lay the hairs in the same direction. The hairs for the most part arrange themselves in parallelism with their original outer or pointed ends pointing in the direction of travel of the upper portion of the top picker roller 43, that is pointing to the left in the showing in Fig. 2. Of course, this means that the hairs so pointing have their thick end, base or root ends pointing to the right of the showing as they are lifted through the slot. While all of the hairs are not so orientated, and as a. matter of fact all of them are not even brought into parallelism but remain intertwined with each other, still most of the hairs and particularly the long, thin fur hairs are so arranged with their pointed ends pointing in the same direction. The extremely short hairs in the mass have a tendency to remain in a more or less matted form but, of course, not so matted as in the original stock.

In those cases where a curling, screw-like or Wavy-like or wavy type of fur hair is used, as in the case of sheep's wool, the hair is disintegrated and discharged through the slot as previously described, but in these cases there is no noticeable arrangement of the hair particles in parallel relation and no unidirectional pointing of the for instance, the hair is interlocked by its screw,

or spiral construction and thus resists the action of, the pickers to separate and arrange it in parallel relation.

The thread treating device it includes a set of drawing rollers 46 for drawing a single thread t under tension from a supply spool (not shown) and across the slot 45 in position to receive the discharge from the same. The slot is quite narrow and dimensioned so that the thread almost but not quite acts as a closure for the same as shown in Fig. 3. Difierently expressed, the thread is centered over the slot and there is provided on opposite sides of the thread long clearances of extremely narrow width. 1

Considered from right to left of the showing in Figs. 1 and 2, there is disclosed a spring pressed presser foot 41 for restraining the freedom of movement of the thread under the pulling action of the rollers 46. It is suggested that in some cases the thread be coated with glue or other suitable adhesive and for this purpose there is .shown an adhesive pct 48 mounted with the presser foot on a bracket 49 carried by the casing 29. The thread is passedover and in engagement with the flat top of a steel block 50 which acts to prevent the hairs from flying loose from the revolving thread. From the block 50 the covered yarn is passed through bore SI of an ironer 52 mounted on top of the casing 29.- The bore is of conical form as shown in Fig. 4 with the larger end forming the intake end for receiving the coated thread or yarn.

The disclosure contemplates the twisting of the thread and resulting yarn about its own axis during the period while it is receiving the hair over the slot and while being drawn through the ironer. For this purpose, the yarn is passed through the bore 54 of rotary twister 55 including a tubular shell mounted for rotary movement about its own axis in a bearing 56 carried by bracket 51 in turn carried by casing I9.

Within the bore 54 are mounted four grooved spools 58 each free to turn about its own axis, two on each side of the thread. The spool axis extend in parallel relation and transversely of the axis of rotation of the twister. The two middle spools are arranged so that their adjacent peripheries are each inset slightly beyond the path of the thread thereby to cause the thread as it passes through the bore to assume the wavy or undulated offset form shown in Fig. 2; Differently described, the plane tangent to the spools of one set is offset inwardly beyond the plane tangent to the spools of the other set. The

twister is provided with a driving pulley 59 belted to the drive mechanism and intended to be driven at high speed. The twister acts on the yarn to give it a definite tortional twist and this twist extends from the presser foot 41 to the drawing rollers 40, the twist being clockwise between the twister and rollers and counter-clockwise between the twister and presser foot.

During the movement of the twisted thread in its advance along the slot, it is dragged through the long narrow stream of loosely matted cloud of hair rising out of the slot and acts to pick up the hair. It is understood that as it passes through the mass of hair the thread is rapidly rotating so that the hair for the most part is twisted on to the thread to form a closely matted inner layer with many of the hairs sticking outwardly from the hair coating.

As the coated thread is advanced through the ironer 52 the more or less loose short hair coating is circumferentially compacted: the hair more thoroughly intertwined and pressed firmly into the adhesive coating. The resulting yarn is of much less diameter than when fed into the ironer.

It is noted that the thread and subsequent yarn is advanced in the same direction, that is from right to left in the showing in Figs. 1 and 2, in which the straight hairs point as they were discharged through the slot. This means, of course, that most of the hairs are laid on the thread with their pointed ends in advance and due to the twist of the yarn as it passes through the .ironer these hairs will be formed in the yarn with a screw-like or spiral lay and with their pointed ends in advance, that is, pointed to the left.

In the operation all of the hairs do not so lie within the outlines of the'matted hair covering on the core forming thread. A certain percentage of the threads, and usually the longer threads, having their inner, wider or base ends embedded in the adhesive and in the closely matted coating, but these pointed hair ends extend freely outwardly from the coating in somewhat spaced apart relation along the entire length of the finished yarn.

' The resulting yarn y is difficult to show pictorially due to the fineness of the hairs but reference to Figs.5 and 6 will show the yarn at least in a crude way. In these figures the central core is formed by the twisted thread t, coated with a thin layer of adhesive 0 and into which adhesivethe coating 0 of matted hairs is more or less embedded. The free outwardly pointing hairs are shown at h. By the time the yarn has reached the drawing rollers 48 it has passed along a stretch sufflcient to insure an air drying and is delivered to the take up spool in a commercially dry condition. Incidentally, no more adhesive is used than is just sufficient to insure the sticking of the hair to the thread.

By means of a driving connection with a source of power the speed of the measuring drum ii and pickers 38-43 is so synchronized with the travel of the thread it and resulting yarn 11 under the pull of the drawing rollers 46 that the requisite amount of fur covering is located on the thread per unit length to give the requisite extent of covering. For the purpose of controlling the relative speeds of the different drawing rollers, drum and picker rollers to meet the varying conditions imposed by different types of fur in use for the time being, the machine will include conventional change speed mechanism.

As the coated core, either of the single or double thread, passes through the ironer the coating will be rather firmly packed into place.

The finished yarn 11 formed is wound on to a take up spool replaceably mounted on shaft 6i operatively connected to the drive mechanism. The spool 80 is used conventionally in a fabric weaving machine and the yarn thereon is woven into a cloth which on both sides looks very much like the fur side of a natural fur skin. It partakes of the appearance of the hair of the animal which supplied the waste cuttings. For instance, waste hair from a gray squirrel can be made into a'yarn, the yarn into a fabric and the fabric into an artificial gray squirrel coat which looks as if it were made from natural gray squirrel skins. Fabrics made from the waste hairs cuttings from a long'haired animal like a fox produce a bean- 76 tiful black or brown soft glossy surface which with 7 its fine hair ends produces the silky effect of a high price skin of fox.

By suitably mixing in the hopper the waste hair from different kinds of fur an indefinite number of differently appearing forms of resulting fabric may be obtained.

While fur hair of both the straight and. curled variety has been specifically described herein, it is within the scope of the disclosure to use other forms of waste material such, for instance, as feathers.

We claim:

1. Apparatus for applying fur hair fiufi to an adhesively coated thread, the combination of means forming a narrow slot, means for moving a thread under tension while rotating the same, means for guiding the thread to pass lengthwise over and close to the slot in position substantially closing the slot and means for lifting the fiufi upwardly through the slot and on to the thread.

2. The apparatus defined in claim 1 and which includes as part of the thread moving and rotating means a rotary twister located in line with and just beyond the slot in the direction of travel of the thread and through which twister the fluff covered thread is passed, said twister acting on the thread to cause it to be twisted in one rotary direction in the portion thereof passing over the slot.

3. A device for forming a filled yarn, the combination of a conduit defined at a delivery end by a wall provided with a long narrowslotplacing the interior of the conduit in open communication with the outside and mechanism within the conduit including at least one picker roll constituting the means for advancing a mass of long thin particles of filling material through the conduit and out through the slot, said slot acting to selectively permit the free passage therethrough of those particles which happen to be substantially parallel to the slot as they reach the same and said wall tending to resist the passage through the slot of those particles which do not happen to be substantially parallel to the slot as they reach the same, whereby the particles as they are discharged from the slot lie more or less parallel to the same, and means for passing a thread under tension along the length of the slot and close thereto to pick up the particles as they are so passed substantially in alignment through the slot.

4. The device defined in claim 3 and in which said last named means include a presser foot on one side of the slot, a pair of drawing rollers on the opposite side and a rotary twister between the slot and drawing rollers to give the thread a tortioned twist, and a plate between the slotand twister across which the thread is drawn.

5. The device defined in claim 3 and in which said last named means include a rotary twister for twisting the thread as it passes across the slot and an ironer located beyond the slot to circumferentially compact the particles picked up by the twisted thread as it passes across the slot.

6. In a device of the class described, the combination of mechanism defining a thread path and including a presser ioot through which the thread is passed and a take-up spool for drawing the thread under tension through the presser foot, and said mechanism therebetween including in order from the presser foot means for applying adhesive to the thread. means for supplying filling material tothe thread and provided with a slot along which the thread extends in position to receive the discharge from the slot, an ironer, and a rotary twister for imposing a twist on the thread as it is passed along the slot.

'7. In a device for filling yarn on to a filament from a closely matted mass of animal hair,-the combination in order of a casing, picker mechanism within the casing for receiving the mass of hair and acting thereon to form therefrom a fiufiy mass of hair, said casing provided with a long, narrow discharge slot through which the hair is projected by the picker mechanism, means for moving a core forming filament under tension along and close to the slot, means for rotating the filament as it picks up the hair, and means for ironing the hair on to the rotary filament.

8. In apparatus for forming a hair filled yarn from a stock matted mass of fur hair, the combination of means acting on the mass to form the same into a thin fiat ribbon,'means forming a conduit into which the ribbon is discharged and in which conduit the air is substantially quiescent, said conduit provided at its discharge end with a wall having a long narrow slot, a disintegrating device within the conduit including at least one picker roller for separating the ribbon into a fiufi'y mass and constituting the sole means for discharging the flufiy mass against the wall and through the slot with a large proportion of the hairs passing through the slot substantially parallel to the same, and means for passing a thread close to and along the length of the slot in position to pick up the hairs discharged from the slot.

9. The device defined in claim 8 and which includes means for twisting the thread as it is passed along the slot.

10. Apparatus for applying flufify material to a thread, the combination of means forming a narrow slot, means for moving a thread under tension while rotating the same, means for guiding the thread to pass lengthwise above and close to the slot and means for causing the fiufiy material to pass upwardly through the slot and to be guided thereby on to the thread and thus to cause the rotating thread to pick up the material as it is discharged on to the thread through the slot.

MORRIS H. SIEGEL. FRANCES SONIN.

No references cited. 

